Dear Editor,

We are now focused on the Manatt/Dudus Enquiry and rightly so, since we need to get to the truth about what actually happened. We must, however, get real on the matter of how much weight we must put on such enquiries as opposed to the running of a country.

The PNP ruled this country for 18 1/2 years and wrecked the economy. The Jamaican people have two choices before them. Do we judge the JLP by the Dudus situation or do we judge the JLP by the way they govern the country, with respect to the economy and crime?

Let’s look at the facts. The PNP government destroyed our economic base by having a high interest rate policy and borrowing money at high interest rates. The agricultural sector was down, tourism was down, crime was up and the dollar continued to slide. But since the JLP government took office in 2007 they have lowered interest rates, increased tourist arrivals, reduced crime, revalued and stabilised the dollar, secured low interest rates on loans (contrary to the PNP’s predictions), reduced corruption both in the police force and the civil service, and increased agricultural production to the point that we are now having a surplus in agriculture.

The question we must now ask ourselves is this: what effect does Dudus or the enquiry have on my day-to-day living, or should I be more concerned with the economy and crime which the government is attacking successfully?

If the prime minister is found to have told the country a lie or to have deceived the country in one form or another, then we would be in order to ask for his resignation, but to talk about putting a PNP government back into power in order to squander all the gains of the JLP government and to pursue another high interest rate policy that destroyed us in the first place would be unpatriotic and downright stupid.

Now I hear supposedly intelligent people saying that because of the Manatt/Dudus debacle they are not going to vote for the JLP in the next election, and the polls also bear this out. Well, if you are dumb enough to put back the PNP, then God help us all.

John Mills

johnmills22@hotmail.com